the mobilization of an expedition to liberate Jerusalem, and they continued
to play a fundamental role in the religious experience of crusaders during
the entire first century of crusading warfare.
Fulcher of Chartres recorded in his Jerusalem Historythat during the
battle of Dorylaeum (June 30, 1097) the crusaders were convinced that
they would all die during the fighting against the superior Muslim force.
They crowded around the priests, including Bishop Adhemar of le Puy, the
papal legate, in order to confess their sins and prepare themselves for
death. Similarly, at the battle of Antioch, priests dressed in their white vest-
ments moved among the crusaders and comforted them. They poured out
prayers on behalf of the soldiers while singing psalms and openly weeping
before the Lord. In the aftermath of the battle, the crusade commanders,
including Bohemond, Count Raymond of Toulouse, and Duke Geoffrey of
Lotharingia, wrote a letter to Pope Urban in which they explained their vic-
tory as a vindication of their trust in God and their actions as good Chris-
tians. In particular, they emphasized that the army did not go into battle
until every soldier had confessed his sins.
The religious behavior of the soldier during the First Crusade is re-
flected in the exceptionally popular epic poem, The Song of Roland.In
both the Latin and vernacular traditions of this famous story, the poets
consistently emphasized the prebattle religious preparations made by sol-
diers about to fight the Muslims in Spain. Roland is depicted confessing his
sins and receiving communion. The narrator commented that Roland acted
in this manner because it was customary for soldiers to fortify their souls
before going into battle. After preparing himself with the sacred rites of
confession and communion, Roland with the other soldiers sang psalms
and prayed to the cross so that God would give them victory in battle and
accept them into heaven if they died in the field.
One major benefit that accrued to crusading soldiers and which was
not available to their contemporaries fighting in profane wars was the in-
dulgence. Popes offered indulgences, or remissions of sins, to those soldiers
who volunteered to fight against the enemies of the Church. In its more lim-
ited sense the indulgence was meant to serve as an alternative to penances
that a soldier already deserved for sins he had previously committed. How-
ever, from the very outset of the crusading movement soldiers believed that
the indulgence freed one from both purgatory and hell and that it further
served as a kind of direct pass to heaven if one died in battle. A large cor-
pus of canon law was developed to treat the various ramifications of indul-
gences in relation to the Christian economy of salvation, much of which de-
bunked the more generous popular beliefs about the power of indulgences.
Nevertheless, throughout the Middle Ages most soldiers and their families
believed that indulgences were a guarantee of salvation.452 Religion and Spiritual Development: Ancient Mediterranean and Medieval West